I've stayed away from here over the past week or two, just lurking, keeping up, but not getting into the debates, because I needed the time to take care of myself, and it's too easy to burn out, and I felt I was burning out.
But tonight I'm watching results and airheaded punditry, and the desire to say something is rather intense. And what I have to say comes down to this: It's time for this to end.
Senator Clinton ran a better race in the past few weeks than I expected, and she got some victories, all well and good for her. She got the media to give her the sort of lovefest that had typically been left to St. John McCain. She trashed a fellow Democrat in ways I didn't think possible. She played a Republican game to win Democratic primaries. She snuck in the race card for almost two months now. She committed many, many unsavory acts to get her here, and mathematically, she STILL cannot win.
It's time for this to end.
Jumping....
Updated 11:07 pm: Obama is going to win North Carolina by 14 points, and Hillary is clinging to a narrow four-point lead in Indiana. Assuming that the margin stays the way it is, he will end the night with 100,000+ votes added to his popular margin, and a 42-35 delegate win, meaning she still loses the night.
Updated 11:45 pm:The lead for Hillary in Indiana is now 51-49, with the vote margin at 19,000 votes, and Gary and its suburbs, a big Obama area, still counting. Her declaration of victory may very well be premature, considering he halved her lead in about 40 minutes time. Oh, this is quite exciting....
Barack Obama will likely crush Hillary Clinton in North Carolina, with the early numbers showing a 2-1 win, a complete blowout. She is up by fourteen points in Indiana, but there is no call yet because many of the larger cities haven't reported yet. He clearly comes away with the bigger win.
Yet, this morning, Clinton comes out with new ridiculous math. She claims Obama needs 200 additional delegates to win. She says she'll fight at the Rules Committee meeting. She keeps coming up with new ways to say she's winning when any objective look at the factual data says she is not, and the media has bought in, because they're eager to keep their tired old narrative of fighting Democrats in disarray. The lack of objectivity shown in Tim Russert's framing tonight has astonished me. Norah O'Donnell's gleeful presentation of poll data showing that the Rev. Wright brouhaha (also gleefully advanced by the media, despite its irrelevance) affected half of the voters in both states was disgusting. But I thanked God for a skeptical Keith Olbermann, who said it looked like the media didn't have the effect it thinks it has on people when it came to Rev. Wright. And yes, Chris Matthews, working to debunk Hillary's sudden "working-class" turn, made me smile at his skepticism when Hillary's surrogates tried to say this is the real her.
In any case, we will leave this night with a tie in states, but a bigger win in the bigger state by the true frontrunner, and so tomorrow, Barack Obama will have gained delegates again. Tomorrow, superdelegates need to start stepping in. Tomorrow, it's time for this to end. We cannot afford to drag this out any longer while John McCain gets fawning media coverage from the useless horde of tools that comprise his press entourage. We cannot afford to drag this out any longer while the economy crumbles, while the war continues, while our rights are hurt by Voter ID acts that turned away elderly nuns from voting in Indiana, while we play into the hands of Republicans who gleefully watch as Hillary Clinton plays their game, trying to paint a guy whose first job was for $11,000/year as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago as the elitist.
It's time for this to end.
We are down to six months, six months to demonstrate to America that we as a party are ready to lead, that we are ready to change this divisiveness that permeates our politics, that we are ready to fix our broken nation, that we want a better, stronger America that is a world leader instead of a world outcast, a nation that helps others instead of invading them, a nation that is first in its economy, in its innovation, in its respect for human rights, in its dedication to creating the peace, and that will work with the rest of the world to end the threat of radical terrorists who want to throw us back a millenium.
None of this will come about if we don't unite. None of this will happen if we allow the loser of a campaign to "win" yet again. None of this will happen if we continue giving the Republicans what they want, one Democrat using their tactics to rip apart the other. None of this will happen if John McCain wins in November because we were too busy fighting each other instead of showing America what a dangerous, lying lunatic this man has become.
Hillary Clinton, you have lost, and it is time for this to end. Please, for the sake of the party, and if you don't care about that, the nation's sake, then, and drop out of this race, gracefully, eloquently, and in full support of the man who is the winner based on all of the factual measurements, Barack Obama.
It is time for this to end.